Will NATO’s new head lead to new thinking about Russia?

Will NATO’s new head lead to new thinking about Russia?

After last week’s appointment of Jens Stoltenberg
as NATO’s new Secretary
General, we asked experts whether the former Norwegian prime minister will
improve NATO’s relationship
with Russia.

While Russia and NATO have been trading
barbs over the Ukrainian crisis and are struggling to overcome this
standoff in their relations, the Oct. 1 appointment
of NATO’s new Secretary
General, Jens Stoltenberg, a former Norwegian prime minister, was met with
optimism by some experts and officials.

For example, former NATO consultant John
Wallace sees Stoltenberg as a person who is ready to come
up with compromise solutions, as someone who «is expected
to take a softer and more consensus-based approach»,
as quoted by Russian news agency RIA Novosti.

«He [Stoltenberg] stated that he is open-minded
about the possibility of repairing the relationship and putting the
NATO-Russia Council back into effect», he told the Center
on Global Interests in Washington on Oct. 8.

Meanwhile, some Russian experts remain very leery toward the new
NATO
Secretary General. Among them is Alexey Fenenko, a researcher
at the Institute of International Security Problems of the
Russian Academy of Sciences and an associate professor at Moscow
State University.

«There is nothing good in this [the appointment
of Stoltenberg] for Russia-NATO relations, because
Scandinavian countries, except Finland, are always negative toward Russia»,
he told RIA Novosti. Fenenko also pointed out that Russia and
NATO
have always seen each other as strategic competitors and that
anti-Russian rhetoric will be persistent as long
as the Ukrainian crisis continues.

At the same time, there seem to be no unequivocal
indicators that NATO is going
to toughen its position vis-à-vis Russia or improve its relations
with Moscow. Even though NATO recently conducted
the 2014 Rapid Trident military exercises in Ukraine,
it doesn’t necessarily mean that it will expand closer
to the Russian border, which the Kremlin would see as a threat.
As Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Pavlo Klimkin said after the meeting
with Stoltenberg this week, NATO has no plans
to provide direct military assistance to Ukraine.

However, some of Stoltenberg’s statements might be met with
suspicion in the Kremlin. During his recent visit to Poland, the new
NATO
head said that the Alliance could deploy its forces wherever it wants.
«NATO
has a strong army after all. We can deploy it wherever
we want to», Stoltenberg told Poland’s state broadcaster TVP Info.
«These capabilities already exist. We have them, and we can deploy
them in individual regions. And this is only
an add-on to what the alliance already has».

Given these recent developments, Russia Direct got in touch with
Russian and foreign experts as well as with NATO officials
to figure out what Moscow should expect from the new NATO head.

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Igor Istomin, senior lecturer in the Department of Applied
International Analysis of Moscow State Institute of International
Relations (MGIMO-University).

As NATO’s policies are
formed based on the agreement between its member states, the Secretary
General only represents these decisions and transforms them into specific
actions. Therefore, his influence on the decision-making
process is very limited.

This is evident from the example of the previous Secretary
General, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who in the beginning of his term
in 2009, repeatedly stressed the importance of building good
relations with Russia. His position today is completely different and
follows the general logic of NATO.

The explanation for such a change in thinking lies in the
general interests of NATO. In 2009 the
goal of the bloc was to rebuild its relations with Russia after the
war in Georgia, while in 2014 the allies are eager to show their
discontentment with Russia’s policy over Ukraine. That’s why the new
Secretary General’s role will be strictly representative and may
be used rather as an indicator of NATO’s thinking.

At the moment, the allies are not that eager to be involved
in any campaigns abroad. The bloc is focused on ensuring the
security of its members as a response to the crisis
in Ukraine and Russia’s policies in the region.

The relations between Russia and NATO today are
characterized by two things. First, there is no real probability
of a direct military conflict between NATO and Russian
forces — claims of locating additional NATO forces
in Central Europe are of a demonstrative nature not
significantly changing the balance of power in Europe.

Second, with International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) leaving
Afghanistan, there are almost no areas where NATO and Russia could
cooperate. In these circumstances, the interaction between the two parties
has a more virtual nature, lacking any substance. So, while there
is no possibility for military conflict, there are
no preconditions for rapprochement either.